Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Cleopatra Mathis’s "That Year" is a deeply evocative exploration of a mother’s perspective on her daughter’s tumultuous adolescence. The poem intertwines themes of despair, helplessness, and resilience with vivid imagery of winter’s grip and the natural cycle of renewal. Through its raw emotional texture and layered symbolism, the poem paints a striking picture of a year marked by both internal and external turmoil.

Winter anchors the poem, symbolizing a period of emotional desolation and stagnation. The opening line, "Winter nailed itself to the ground," establishes an unyielding, oppressive atmosphere that reflects the emotional state of the daughter. This metaphor suggests both permanence and pain, as though the season—and the challenges it represents—has affixed itself to their lives. The description of the daughter, "breaking and freezing," further reinforces this idea, capturing her fragility and the immobilizing weight of her struggles. Her self-inflicted wounds, described as "not pierces but a ragged stitch circling her arm," convey both her pain and her attempts to make sense of it through physical acts, however destructive.

The poem moves through time, with March bringing "bad snow kibbled to rot." The decaying snow mirrors the deterioration of the daughter’s emotional state. Her retreat into her "black room," surrounded by images of death and suffering—Cobain, tortured rabbits, clubbed seals—creates a claustrophobic sense of her inner world. These images are not just symbols of her despair but also a testament to her acute awareness of the world’s harshness. Her fixation on such representations highlights her perception of life as inherently brutal and unyielding. The poem doesn’t shy away from the visceral details, such as "the baby in the toilet" and "the stalker," which amplify the stark realities she faces or perceives, emphasizing her inability to find solace or meaning in her surroundings.

Against this bleak backdrop, the mother’s actions and perspective provide a poignant counterpoint. Her efforts to prepare for spring, to plant gardens "in last fall’s rain," stand in stark contrast to the emotional barrenness of her daughter’s experience. The mother’s meticulous attention to soil, depth, and food—her hope that "everything in my rich dirt was sure to rise"—symbolizes her nurturing instincts and her belief in renewal and growth. However, this belief is tinged with irony, as her carefully laid plans for the garden cannot directly address her daughter’s turmoil. The seasonal progression of snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils, and tulips offers a stark juxtaposition to the emotional stasis of the daughter’s "hungry days."

The tension between the natural world’s predictable renewal and the unpredictability of human suffering is at the heart of the poem. While the mother focuses on her preparations, turning her back "to the prevailing weather," her actions can be read as both a form of hope and a coping mechanism. The gardens represent a space where she can exert control and foster life, even as her daughter’s struggles lie beyond her ability to fully mend.

Mathis’s language is precise and unflinching, capturing the rawness of adolescent pain and the quiet desperation of motherhood. The imagery oscillates between the bleak and the beautiful, from "the unyielding world" of the daughter’s perspective to the mother’s carefully charted garden. This contrast serves to underscore the central emotional divide in the poem: the mother’s hope and care set against the daughter’s despair and isolation.

Ultimately, "That Year" is a meditation on resilience in the face of despair—both the daughter’s silent endurance and the mother’s determination to nurture life, even amidst emotional frost. The poem doesn’t resolve the tension it portrays; instead, it lingers in the ambiguity of hope and helplessness. By juxtaposing the cyclical renewal of nature with the painful stasis of adolescence, Mathis captures the profound complexities of love, grief, and the relentless human need to believe in growth and healing, even when faced with evidence to the contrary.

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